


The Wrong Part Of Jotunheim

by LiinHaglund



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Jotunn | Frost Giant, Jötunheimr | Jotunheim, Murphy's Law, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 18:58:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8412886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiinHaglund/pseuds/LiinHaglund
Summary: Thor convinces his friends to go to Jotunheim with him, but Heimdall makes a mistake and sets them down far from any settlement. Too far.





	

“Is that even edible?” Thor asks.

Loki shrugs. “It was all I found.” Which is the truth. The icy tundra is free of all plant life and the only animal he could find he killed swiftly.

Thor, Sif and the Warriors Three have huddled together in a shallow ice cave. Without the wind to cool them down they are moderately comfortable, but they are unwilling to walk out of their refuge.

“Father must have fallen into the Odinsleep,” Thor muses. It does explain why there is no rescue. Otherwise Odin is always quick to come to save Thor from himself.

Loki offers no reply, silently dressing the killed animal. He would have liked to stay with them, but he is restless and hungry. He feels off; detached. Breathing is too easy, his feet too light on the ground.

“Have you seen anyone?” Sif asks him.

“No one,” Loki answers. “Perhaps we're merely in the wrong area, perhaps they do not wish to meet us, perhaps they are letting the cold deal with us so they will not get their hands dirty...”

The cold. Loki feels the cold, he knows changes in temperature. What he doesn't feel is pain. Jotunheim is colder than any other cool area they have visited so far, but Loki fails to feel what the others complain about. Stinging. Burning. Numbing.

“How will we cook it?” Volstagg asks.

“There is not a single tree, no bush, no plants of any kind that I have seen,” Loki says a little harshly, because even Volstagg should have noticed this on their trek. “We eat it raw.”

The others all make disgusted faces and Loki shakes his head. “The mightiest warriors of Asgard, indeed,” he mocks under his breath. It freezes in front of his face, a white mist following every exhale he makes. It's cold enough to kill a mortal in minutes, cold enough to make Aesir huddle together for warmth. Jotunheim is a hostile realm to those not born there. Odin would often tell them that the war could have been lost if it had gone on for much longer.

“This has just not been my day,” Thor says bitterly. “Do not mock me, brother.”

Loki sighs. “Sorry.”

Thor places a meaty paw on his shoulder, and it feels too heavy suddenly. “No, I should apologize. I am sorry, for bringing you here. I am sorry for making you hunt alone.”

Loki smiles, but he doesn't verbally accept. Something he learned a long time ago, because he is slow to forgive and he never forgets.

“I really do hate this frozen realm,” Fandral says.

Loki has cut the meat into small pieces. “It will never be warmer than this,” he cautions. He already ate a few choice cuts while handling the dead animal and the meat is far from bad. “It's good.”

Thor takes a small piece and chews, which prompts the other four to eat as well. Sif is the least picky out of them – save for Loki himself – and when the others grow bored of the raw meat she finishes it off.

Loki cleans out the hide with one of his many knives and uses snow to get the fur free from blood. They will need it to keep warm since there seems to be no way to return just yet. The sun is almost gone and night has started painting more stars on the dark sky. More, because Jotunheim is so far from its sun that even during daylight the stars closest shine on the sky.

“I wonder why Heimdall let us go, only to place us _here_ ,” Loki says. “He normally puts us down right where we need to be.”

They had walked for hours before taking shelter, the frozen landscape as barren as a desert, and twice as inhospitable.

“Perhaps he intends for us to learn a lesson about what to wear?” Volstagg ventures jokingly.

“What for?” Loki asks. “Thor was nearly crowned king. Heimdall is not in a place to judge either a prince, nor a king.”

Privately, Loki is pleased. Thor will certainly learn a lesson about his temper, and perhaps the high and mighty Heimdall will learn not to argue with Asgard's princes. Or, rather, not argue with Loki.

“True,” Sif says in a shivering voice, “he should do his duty and no more.”

They are dressed for Asgard, which is much warmer. Heimdall never should have allowed them to go, breaking the Allfather's orders, and he certainly should have put them down closer to the Jotun capital. If there is one. Perhaps this was once it and everything is gone now. Perhaps Heimdall will risk Thor and the warriors if it will only get Loki out of his hair permanently.

Loki does not deny that Heimdall despises him, nor that the feeling is both well founded and mutual.

“If I freeze to death, I am sorry for everything you might have taken offense to,” Loki says.

Sif laughs, “no, Loki, you most certainly are not.”

Loki huffs, but Sif is right.

“No one is freezing to death,” Thor says.

“Night is here, Thor,” Loki warns. He fears the cold, fears that even though he feels it differently it may still kill him. He is Aesir, just like they are.

Thor pulls him close. “I know, brother, but try to keep up hope,” he whispers to Loki.

It's almost like when they were younger, when Thor was his hero, and he buries his face in his older brother's neck. They have grown apart, and for a while Loki expects to be pushed away, but Thor allows it. Holds him closer even.

“You are almost frozen solid,” Thor says and pulls Loki even closer.

 

* * *

 

The next day finds them all alive. Loki sees the others flex fingers, hears them complain about feeling stiff from the night's cold.

Thor insists they explore, and they end up walking the entire day. They reach a small Jotun settlement, likely a hunter community, though Loki does not consider this a good thing. Thor tries to ask the Jotuns for direction, but, it goes about as well as one could expect.

They are all bound and tossed inside a hut. Mjolnir is somewhere just on the edge of the settlement, forgotten in the snow.

“Well, we are warmer,” Thor grins.

Loki gives that statement a long suffering sigh and almost coughs from how the extra air tickles his throat. His skin has been getting paler as the day went on, and now he is turning a worrying shade of blue.

“This is not going to end well,” Hogun says.

Sif makes a noise of agreement.

One of the elderly Jotuns enter the hut. He has a staff to help him walk, back bent from old age. He gingerly sits on the ground in front of them. “Aesir are not allowed on Jotunheim,” the old Jotun rumbles.

An agreement from the war. Aesir may not enter Jotunheim, and the Jotuns may not enter Asgard.

“We will be on our way, as soon as we have gotten the answers we came for,” Thor assures.

Loki is sure he has gotten some sort of illness, because his throat hurts and he feels almost feverish. It's odd to feel it now when it was centuries since his last bout of illness. Loki thinks he was perhaps five at the time. “Thor,” he says weakly, because his brother has not failed to protect him yet.

It draws he attention of the old giant too, and his red eyes narrow.

 

* * *

 

They are transported to Utgard and thrown in jail. Loki remembers some pieces of it. The fever makes it hard to focus and harder to stay awake. His memory is spotty and his attention is all but gone.

Thor, Sif and the Warriors Three are kept in a separate prison cell from Loki, because he has gotten worse and worse.

A healer of some sort comes to look at him a few times, Loki is too feverish to know for sure if the visits are regular.

When Laufey finally deigns to talk to them Loki is too weak to walk to the throne room with them. The guards leave him behind in his cell. The healer comes and feeds him a drink of some sort. It helps a lot, but the taste is odd. Almost like metal.

When the Jotun healer carries him to the throne room Loki sees Frigga in all her Queenly glory and he wants to scream for her, but his throat is not up to even the smallest whisper.

Loki sees Laufey for the first time – though he knows him from pictures – and beside him a smaller Jotun who is likely his consort or Queen.

Even here, in the throne room, it is dark and gloomy. Just like their home world stays far away from its star, the inhabitants favor the dark. Loki is used to the brightness of Asgard.

“What have you done to him?” Frigga exclaims in horror.

“It's alright, Frigga,” comes Odin's voice. Loki turns to look at his father.

“It's the illness. He started changing on the second day.” Thor.

“No, Thor,” Odin says with a sigh. “Though that is a problem.”

The Jotun holding Loki is closer to the thrones, and when the Queen rises and walks to him neither member of his family can intercept quickly enough. He's passed from one Jotun to the other like a sack of grains, and he offers about as much resistance. While his mind is clearer, his body is weak.

For a prisoner, he's treated well. On Asgard they offer no medical aid, at least, not as far as Loki knows. The hold is also gentler than it should be.

“Care to explain?” the Queen, or whatever title is appropriate, asks Odin. The voice is male, and the tone is one of harsh disapproval.

There is silence while Loki is carried to a dais, or table, he cannot be sure which. There is a flash in the dim light, a knife's blade reflecting light. Loki tries to move away, but only manages to weakly shift a little despite the panic he feels.

“I found him when he was a babe, no bigger than an Aesir, so I assumed he had been left to die,” Odin says, but Loki has no idea what they are even talking about now.

“Your father was never very clever either,” Laufey bites out. He rises from his throne and as he moves to the Queen he shows Odin his teeth in what can only be called a snarl.

It's Laufey who places large hands on either side of Loki's head. He could easily crack Loki's head, crush him to mush, but the hold is not forceful. It's gentle.

“This will be unpleasant,” the Queen says quietly, seemingly for no one else's benefit.

The knife is back in Loki's line of vision, close to his face, as well as the Queen's wrist. With a clean cut blood comes forth, and Laufey's large hands forces Loki's mouth open.

The blood that he is forced to swallow is warm, and... it should make him sick to his stomach, but all he feels is a calm.

Laufey leaves, goes back to his throne.

The Queen has put the knife away and sits next to Loki, almost like a parent would it beside a sick child. Clearly his feverish mind is making him delusional if he is thinking of a Jotun in a positive way. “Thank you,” the man whispers next to Loki's ear.

Loki is confused, and it must show on his face.

“All of Asgard's royals,” the Queen whispers, “ _here_. Where we can finally punish them.”

There is an ominous silence while Loki slowly gets up and tries to stand. His body is too weak, and if not for the hovering Jotun Queen he would have fallen.

“It will not be possible to conceal him again,” Laufey says.

“We will take him with us,” Odin proclaims.

Loki doesn't know what they're talking about. Strong hands lift him, and then he's carried. Back and forth. Like a...

“That is my child,” Laufey hisses.

Child.

“WHAT?”

It is Frigga, not Loki, who speaks up, but her voice carries better than his would.

Odin is scratching his chin through his short beard.

“Father?” Thor asks.

Loki's brain scrambles to catch up, to piece it all together.

“Are you telling me that my brother is a Jotun you found as a baby, disguised, then claimed as your own?” Thor wants clarified.

When he sees Frigga cry Loki finally finds a little bit of his voice. Enough to croak out a weak “mother” and reach for her.

The Jotun carrying him scoffs.

Frigga walks up to them. She holds her arms out, and the message is clear.

He worries he will be too heavy, he worries the Jotun will not comply, he worries his mind has drawn the correct conclusions.

Two of his fears are for naught. The Jotun hands him over to his mother, and she has no problem holding him in her arms.

“It does not matter,” she whispers, “you will always be my son.” She is warm and she smells like home and safety.

“Touching,” Laufey says. There is a bite to his voice, a cutting edge, and Loki is afraid of what will come next.

“Why was he fed blood?” Frigga asks.

“His body has been rejecting the spell, blood is a good source of food,” the Jotun Queen says as if it is common practice. “Being in the cold makes us grow. One cannot grow confined in a spell.”

“Being born small means nothing,” Laufey says quietly. “Children grow.”

Frigga hands him back to the Jotun Queen. Loki wants to object, but has once more lost his voice.

 

* * *

 

Loki is left behind. He's still sick and even though he hates Laufey for keeping him, he can sort of understand that politically it is a good move. No matter whatever personal feeling are, or are not, involved.

“Hush,” Laufey scolds when the Jotun Queen places Loki in the old king's lap and Loki tries to get away.

He is not a child.

“Behave now, or I will tell them just how two of ours got into Asgard.”

 

 


End file.
